Norfolk's Citizens Advice rolling out extra support for those struggling with rising cost of living
The local charity are also bolstering their existing services and looking for more volunteers due to unprecedented demand
Norfolk's Citizens Advice are rolling out extra support programmes for those with complex needs who are struggling with the rising cost of living.
The local charity is also bolstering its existing services and looking for more volunteers due to an unprecedented amount of families looking for help with their finances.
Mark Hitchcock is their CEO: "We need more and more volunteer's support to be able to help our charity meet the heightened demand.
"We do have a number of projects that are underway and about to start, to provide more extensive support on-going, for people who have very complexed issues to deal with."
"There's stories of people coming into our offices in floods of tears"
He told us about the stories and situation they're dealing with, daily: "They are having to make decisions between prioritising for their children or those they care for, versus themselves.
"There's stories of people coming into our offices in floods of tears because of the rent increases they have seen at the same time as the energy increases in the same month. While potentially they are also facing increases in things like mobile phone bills which pretty much everyone saw increases in.
"We are seeing people that are not even trying to access food banks because they don't have the energy at home to heat the food they would be given.
"There's some very severe examples, it's almost an endless list of those sort of stories on a weekly basis."
"We are also seeing increased requests for food bank support"
Mr Hitchcock concluded by telling us that local people are particularly worried about one set of bills: "30 to 40% of our respondees are worried about the expected October increase in energy costs. We are also seeing increased requests for food bank support, for support in terms of people trying to deal with bills they have never had to face before or their own personal budgets that can't balance any further".
What's causing this?
This is all in large part thanks to inflation rising to 7% in March, the highest rate it's been in 30 years.
With the Bank of England fearing that it will peak at more than 10% this year as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.
-The price of petrol now stands at 162.75p a litre, while diesel is at 177p.
-The Consumer Price Index shows the cost of food and drink has gone up by nearly 6%, year-on-year.
-The price cap on energy bills has increased by 54%.